Burt Michaels

You might not expect to find Rhona Hoffman, whose venerated-but-hip gallery is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, cheering at a Mite-level hockey game (her grandson's), enjoying Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" or reading cosmology, but this stanchion of contemporary art is replete with contradictions--most notably her predilection for art that is abstract, that strives for art-historic breakthroughs and museum status, yet sends a progressive socio-political message. Another contradiction has been thriving in a tough business for three decades while liberally exhibiting artists whose work meets her standards but may have little commercial appeal. "Liberal is a wonderful word," she says. "It means generous and giving to the community."

"The business has changed," she says. "The gallery used to `represent' an artist. Now I don't `own' anyone and help the artists I exhibit find galleries in New York and California. Before the art fairs became so important I was usually the main advisor for clients--individual and corporate. I still have long-term clients, but the focus for both collectors and galleries has really moved to the art fairs." Hoffman exhibits at Basel Miami, the Armory Show and Art Chicago, which she's confident "will come back strong."

As an "homage to the artists," Hoffman is holding three consecutive exhibitions in March, April and May, organized by time, showing work by artists who exhibited there during that period, through not necessarily works made at the time. She's also producing a comprehensive catalogue to accompany the series. Hoffman sees the anniversary series and catalog as a way of "giving back" to the artist community, which she says is noted for generosity.

James Rondeau, curator of contemporary art at the Art Institute, thinks there should be an "homage to Rhona." He says "Rhona co-mingles the very best in international art with the very best art made in Chicago. She's committed to reductive, formal, rigorously conceptual or minimal work--artists like Fred Sandback, Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt--and at the same time a champion for politically motivated, socially engaged artists like Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, Gordon Matta-Clark, Jenny Holzer and Dawoud Bey."

"Commemorating Thirty Years: 1976-2006" shows at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, 118 North Peoria, (312)455-1727, through April 7.

(2007-03-20)

Also by Burt Michaels

Eye Exam
As a fine-art photographer, Brian Ulrich traffics in youth-oriented pop culture, but this time, in the series "Copia" (which means "abundance"), he takes us on a romp where we've all been: through the malls and big-box stores of middle America
(2006-12-05)

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